The Other Side of Sleep

Rebecca Daly

Following a series of stylised and distinctive shorts, director Rebecca Daly here makes her feature debut with this dreamlike vision of an isolated and paranoid young girl. Transformed by past traumas into a chronic sleepwalker, Arlene Kelly’s (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) fragile psyche suffers a near critical blow when one of her excursions leads her to waking up in a forest next to the murdered body of local girl. Fearing she may have been unconsciously responsible for the act, Arlene battles to keep herself awake, lest she kill again. Even as she does so, however, the pain of having lost her mother in similar circumstances as a child leads her to reach out to the family and boyfriend of the murdered Gina (Zsuzsa Varga), despite the latter being a suspect in the murder. The Other Side of Sleep often conducts itself in silence as it expresses Arlene’s fear of what she may have done and may do again.

For more information on The Other Side of Sleep, see this IFI blog from director Rebecca Daly